Surgeries requiring heart-lung machines may have to be cancelled next week if the country’s 25 perfusionists, who monitor the specialised machines during surgery, go ahead with a planned strike. The perfusionists are represented by the trade union Fórsa, which has notified the HSE of a one-day work stoppage next week and a two-day stoppage the following week. Fórsa spokeswoman Linda Kelly told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that the HSE had failed to engage with the trade union on contingency planning. “We’re currently in the dark because the HSE haven’t responded to quite a number of correspondence from us looking for engagement,” she said.Kelly explained that any surgery that required the use of a heart-lung machine would be affected by the work stoppage. “We’re talking about the most serious of operations and I’d have to question the HSE statement in regards to contingency planning because contingency planning requires the union and the HSE to be meeting and to be talking together,” she said. “We’ve been available for the last 2½ weeks since we notified of the industrial action and there has been no contact from the HSE with regards contingency planning.”There had been very poor engagement from the beginning of the dispute, which has been going on for two years, Kelly said. In the past, perfusionists were paid the same rate as medical laboratory scientists but, in January 2024, the HSE “decided to break that pay link”, Kelly said.“The Labour Court made a recommendation to restore it in January and the HSE has refused to implement that. When they say that they’re willing to engage in discussion under local bargaining they forget to mention that there is not enough money in the local bargaining process to pay the claim and so they want us to enter into a discussion that cannot possibly hold a solution for the issue.“The reality is the HSE broke a pay link that has been in existence since the 1960s. They had no right to do that and they now need to restore it and honour the Labour Court recommendation. It’s a very simple dispute, there’s a very simple resolution.”The difference between the two pay rates is €233,000 a year for all 25 perfusionists, which is “not even 0.5 per cent of the health budget”, said Kelly.